SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Jimmie Taylor couldn’t even think of something he had done to compare to this week’s Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament.
Pressed a bit, he came up with playing in the AAU National Tournament in Orlando, Fla., not too far from his home in Suwanee after his junior year of high school.

“That’s probably the biggest event I’ve played in so far,” said Taylor, Rider’s freshman point guard. “But that’s nothing really compared with going to the MAAC Tournament, with a chance to go to the NCAAs.”

Rider has never won the MAAC Tournament to earn the automatic NCAA bid that goes with it. If the Broncs are going to end that drought this year, it’s going to come as the eighth seed, and Taylor is going to have to have one heck of a tournament.

Fortunately, the freshman guard has started to figure out what everyone else who watched him all year already knew: he’s the guy who makes the Broncs go.

Play starts tonight at the MassMutual Center, with Rider taking on ninth-place Monmouth at 5 p.m. in the first of three men’s play-in games.

If the Broncs win, they take on regular-season champ and top-seed Iona at noon Saturday.
Rider just lost to the Gaels 97-81 last Sunday in a crazy game that saw the Broncs fall behind by 18 in the opening minutes and by as much as 22 in the first half, only to come back and tie it early in the second half, and then get blown out at the end.

It’s been that kind of season for Rider, which began the season with hope after a 3-0 MAAC start. The Broncs were 8-4 at one point before losing seven of their final eight regular-season games to fall from a tie for second place to eighth.

“None of that matters now,” said sophomore Shawn Valentine, one of a few Broncs who played well enough down the stretch to perhaps earn more time in the tournament. “We’re all 0-0 going into the tournament.”

The MAAC Tournament is to college basketball what Saratoga Race Course is to horse racing. It’s where favorites go to die. The top seed hasn’t won the tournament in four years, not since Siena, under then-head coach Fran McCaffery, won its third straight title. The past three years have seen two four-seeds (St. Peter’s in 2011, Iona in 2013) and a two seed (Loyola in 2012) take the title. For Rider, there is slim hope in knowing that one eight seed, Fairfield in 1997, won the title.

“Over the course of the year, we’ve shown what we’re capable of doing,” Taylor said. “We played Iona tough (losing by three, with a chance to tie at the end); we played Canisius tough (losing in double overtime). We beat Quinnipiac. We’ve just slipped up too much. If we put together a good 40-minute game, we can beat anybody.”

That hasn’t happened in a while for the Broncs. Their lone win over the final eight games was against 10th-place Fairfield. They haven’t beaten a team with a winning record since Dec. 8.
Can they flip the light switch back on?

“Yes,” Valentine said. “Definitely, yes. We have the ability to do it. We have the players who can do it. We just have to stop getting out to those bad starts and always having to come back. We need to jump out on the other team, like we did early in the season.”

THE FAVORITE
Iona (20-9, 17-3) comes in as the top seed and winner of 12 of its last 13 games. The only loss was in overtime at Manhattan. The Gaels can score at will and have two first-team All-MAAC players in senior Shawn Armand and sophomore A.J. English. The defending tournament champs know how to win big games as well.

THE DARK HORSE
Siena (15-16, 11-9) won four straight, including games over second-seed Manhattan and third-seeded Quinnipiac, to earn the fifth seed and get the first-round bye that goes with it. The Saints began the year 3-7 overall, and at one point were 3-5 in MAAC play. Maybe it just took time to learn first-year head coach Jimmy Pathos’ system. Can the Saints steal this? It will be hard, but they are a team no one wants to play right now.

THE BEST PLAYER
Billy Baron of Canisius ranks in the top 15 in the country in 12 different offensive categories. Baron is second in the MAAC in both scoring and assists per game and controls a game like no other player. He has a real good chance to hear his name called during the June NBA Draft.

THE BEST SCORER
Antoine Mason of Niagara led the nation in scoring for most of the year before finishing second to Creighton’s Doug McDermott. Mason, the son of former NBA player Anthony Mason, will score inside and outside and never met a shot he wouldn’t take. He also gets to the foul line more than any player in the MAAC.

THE BEST SHOOTER
Shawn Armand of Iona can really stroke it. The Gaels senior connected on 48 percent of his shots from the floor (171-for-351) and 44 percent of his 3-point attempts (85-for-193).

BEST REBOUNDER
Ike Azatom and Ousmane Drame of Quinnipiac have been an unbelievable tandem all season. The Bobcats big men average 10.4 and 10.2 rebounds per game, respectively, and 4.2 and 4.0 offensive rebounds per game. When a shot misses, there’s a good chance one of them is getting it.

RIDER’S ROAD
The Broncs (13-16, 9-11) open with a Monmouth team they beat twice this season and one that has been in an even worse slump than Rider is. The Hawks (11-20, 5-15) have lost 10 of their last 11 games, starting with the loss to Rider at Alumni Gym. If the Broncs can win the opener, they would get Iona, which will be difficult. But they do match up better with the Gaels than they do with Manhattan or Canisius.

THE PICK
I’ll take Manhattan (the Bronx, and Staten Island, too). The Jaspers have the best overall team, a great player in George Beamon and a nice trip to the final. They should have no problem getting past either St. Peter’s or Fairfield in the quarters, and either Marist or a banged-up Quinnipiac in the semis. And they own tough wins over both Iona and Canisius late in the season, so they have confidence as well.